District Governor Mike Forney visits as Estes Valley Sunrise Rotary Club welcomes new members

By Steve Mitchell Special to the Trail-Gazette

Posted:
10/18/2012 04:54:29 PM MDT

District Governor Mike Forney inducts David Gaines (white shirt) and Gail Ellis into Estes Valley Sunrise Rotary. Don Darling (orange shirt) is the sponsor of both new members.

Mike Forney

It was a trip to Mexico that crystallized Rotary's place in the world for District 5440 Governor Mike Forney, who spoke at Sunrise Rotary's regular morning meeting on Oct. 16. He'd joined the Steamboat Springs Rotary, attended the meetings and served on several committees when the president asked him to go on a clean water mission trip to a small village in Mexico.

The Rotarians, and local townspeople, were looking at several large tanks of fresh water when a six-year-old boy asked if he could put his head under the spigot. When the fresh water splashed on his head there was pure joy on the boy's face.

"That was the day I became a Rotarian," Forney told the club. "We have every right to feel extremely proud of the work we've been doing in our local community, the region, and internationally."

A doctor in the Philippines started a small program to eliminate polio in 1979. When Rotarians learned about his efforts they decided to take action.

"Rotarians are leaders," Forney said. "We decided that we've got to do something about this."

Since 1985, Rotarians have raised nearly $1 billion and spent countless volunteer hours to assist in the eradication of polio throughout the world. As a result, the incidence of paralytic polio infection has plunged worldwide from 350,000 cases in 1988 to fewer than 1,000 in 2011. With the exception of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, the remainder of the world is now polio free. India, a country of 1.2 billion people, reported its last case of polio 17 months ago.

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Much of this work is accomplished through the Rotary Foundation, which is funded entirely by individual Rotarians.

"When you give $1, $10, $100 to the Foundation, you have skin in the game," Forney said. "You have ownership."

One of the Rotary Foundation's most exciting project is providing peace scholarships to post graduate students each year. Forney said last year the Rotary Foundation gave out 79 peace scholarships, with awards going to students from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.

This effort follows Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka's Rotary theme "Peace through Service." Raised in war-ravaged Japan after World War II, Tanaka realized that you can't have peace in the world without peace in the home, peace in the community and peace in the schools.

The 34,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries around the world initiate projects that address conflict resolution, hunger, poverty, disease and illiteracy.